Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a thing for the Pulps. As a kid I vaguely recall watching the Doc Savage movie on AMC or some such place, though it’s been so many years that everything about the movie is a blur. In my teens I sat through the mostly abysmal The Shadow, and enjoyed the feel of the thing, more than the flick itself. The Rocketeer, on the other hand, grabbed me by the collar and wouldn’t let go for more than one glorious hour, and is a yearly rewatch.

It was a short while later that I discovered the bountiful fountain from which all of these adventure flicks burst. As a teen, I received a reprint of two The Spider pulps, and holy crap was I hooked. The writing of Norvell Page was second to none, going for the throat with the first few words, and dragging me along for the wildest rides I’ve ever been on. After that, it was only natural that I drop into the original Doc Savage, The Shadow, and all of their wonderful, over-the-top, take no prisoner contemporaries. (Though The Spider remains my all time favorite.)

Being a fan, I suppose the next logical step was that I try my hand at writing one of these insane adventures, and try I did for a lot of years, never getting it right. Then last year something happened. Or rather, somethings…

Quite by accident, I discovered the New Pulp, modern books and short stories written in the vein of the classic adventure stories of the 30’s and 40’s. Given the fairly abysmal state of most (but not all) mainstream publishing, to find these stories and books when I did was like a homecoming. From word one, I was loving it.

A few months later, I was thinking about a story, something along the line of the New Pulp, frustrated that something was missing, and I just couldn’t see what. Along comes my oldest daughter, 11 years old and already well on her way to being smarter than her old man, with a new character of her own. Gears turned, pieces fell into place, and I asked her if she’d be interested in dropping her new character into this new story of Daddy’s, and cowriting it with me. Very graciously, she said “Yes.”

What followed was the best writing experience I’ve ever had, more fun by far than anything I’ve ever worked on. Due to technical issues, it was months getting the 15,000 word thing finished, but when it was done, I wouldn’t have changed a word. Shortly thereafter, it was submitted and accepted for publication by Airship 27, a publisher of New Pulp, and creators of simply beautiful books.

So, long story short, this yarn, “The Ghoul Strikes!”, written by myself and my daughter Eleanor Hawkins (published now for the first time at age 12), will be available to buy in a few weeks in the Vol 7 of Mystery Men and Women. To shamelessly promote it, I submit to you now the opening scene of the story, in the hopes that it will intrigue you fine, fine folks enough to pick up the book when it’s available. I’d like to thank you preemptively for doing so.

And now, without further blathering: Enjoy!

 

The Ghoul Strikes!

 

Marvin “Ghoul” MacCormac slowed the car as he drew into the town proper, leaving the paved road behind and rolling onto the hard-packed dirt. The late Autumn night was crisp and silver, the skeletal full moon giving everything a phantasmal, funereal feel. Quinnstown looked dead.

Hours earlier he’d gotten a telegram from his camera girl, Marion McGivern, telling him that something was up with this small, mostly farm-ridden burg. A week before he’d sent her to investigate some weird happenings that his mysterious benefactor had brought to his attention, things that bore looking into. Since then he’d heard not a word from the diminutive former spy. Then came her telegram.

Within a half dozen miles he knew were a few farms, none making more than a bare living, most on the verge or past it of financial ruin. Such were the times, that most of the farmers, their wives and children, had to look for ways to earn extra money. As Ghoul understood it, most found work in town, doing whatever they could to help out their own.

Driving through the center of the town proper, he peeled his eyes looking for any signs of life. It was well past midnight, and he knew that not a soul would be about, but having survived life in the city, and four years of Hell on earth in Europe, he’d learned to take nothing for granted. He had more scars than he cared to count from bullets, knives, and a fairly deep divet from a blackjack hidden beneath his hairline to let him know that it was the inattentive man that payed the piper first.

On both sides of the road were little shops, fronted by boardwalks or the first attempts at sidewalks. He could see a sewer’s roost, a few restaurants, a mechanic’s. At the end of the main street was a library, complete with wrought iron railings and stone lions at the bottom of its steps. Across from it was a self-important brick structure that could only be the township building. In the middle distance was the eye-catcher:

In her telegram, Marion had mentioned the large house, nearly a mansion that did its best to look like a dwarf castle. It was the center of the problems that were dropping down on Quinnstown like a fire from Heaven. She’d been subtle in her wording, no doubt unwilling to give the locals the impression that she was worried. But for someone who’d known her for a long while, as he’d known her for nearly twenty years, her words were signal flares. Something was happening here. And It was happening tonight.

Drifting the car to the thin concrete curb in front of the library, under one of the half dozen lampposts spread out down the street, he shut the engine and sat for a quiet minute, listening. The wind was harsh, not enough to rock the car, but rattling the nearby trees with ease. Throwing up the heavy collar of his black trench coat, he took his hat from the seat next to him and exited the car.

The car door shut with a pistol crack that echoed into the night, carried along the wind like it was the pied piper. If anyone was awake within a mile of him, he had no doubt they’d heard it.

His breath coming out of him in thin puffs, he walked to the center of the street and looked around. Something was wrong, he thought. He was being watched.

Not for the first time, he was glad of the twin thin automatics holstered under his armpits.

Walking across the street, he ascended the steps to the front doors of the township building. Trying them and finding them locked, he grunted. Not surprising, but frustrating nevertheless. Scanning the street again, sure he was not alone, he held his breath, squinted his eyes into the moonlit night, and saw his company.

A hundred yards away, in the direction from which he’d entered town, he could just make out the shambling, running sight of a man, making his quick way toward Ghoul. The way he moved, the fellow was either drunk or hurt. More than once he fell, only to rocket back up and keep up his advance.

When he was at last about a dozen feet from the township building, the stranger let out a snarling shriek like a wounded animal and threw himself wholeheartedly into an end run that brought him to the foot of the steps in three mammoth leaps.

Pulling the .45 from under his left arm, Ghoul aimed it at the stranger, and in a voice that left no room for discussion, demanded, “Stay where you are.”

Still shrieking, the stranger lunged up the steps, hands like claws, murder in his intent. In the moments before he pulled the trigger, Ghoul got his first good look at the man.

The fellow was hardly the Ghoul’s own age, just forty, but looked worse. His skin was the color of old milk, the bags under his eyes heavy and drooping. His mouth was dry and chapped, his teeth loose and black, the gums pulled back severely. He was emaciated to the point that his executioner wondered how he was able to move at all. His clothes were tattered and threadbare, covered here and there with every imaginable manner of filth, and not a little blood. His feet were bare, bruised, and bleeding.

With a decisive crack! the .45 went off, the 230 grain slug slamming into the monstrous man like a hammer, launching him back down the steps, to land on the sidewalk with a sickening splat.

Standing at the top of the flight, looking down at his would-be attacker, Ghoul twitched when he heard new sounds, now. More moans and animal screams, seemingly coming from all around him!